·
INTRODUCTION

·
THE MAIN PART

INTRODUCTION

Why

have I chosen such theme? Sport is
supposed to be interesting

only for men, not for women.
But I think it is a mistaken opinion. Sport is one of the most amusing things
in the world, because of fillings, experiences, excitements connected with it.
Particularly it is so when we speak about the UK.

Think of
your favorite sport. Whatever it is, there is good chance that it was first
played in Britain, and an even better chance that its modern rules were first
codified in this country.

Sport
probably plays a more important part in people’s life in Britain than it does in most other countries. For a very large number it is their main form
of entertainment. Millions take part in some kind of sport at least once a
week. Many millions more are regular spectators and follow one or more sports.
There are hours of televised sport each week. Every newspaper, national or
local, quality or popular, devotes several pages entirely to sport.

The British
are only rarely the best in the world at particular sports in modern times.
However, they are one of the best in the world in a much larger number of
different sports than any other country (British individualism at work again).
My work looks at the most publicized sports with the largest followings. But it
should be noted that hundreds of other sports are played in Britain , each with its own small but enthusiastic following. Some of these may not be seen as a
sport at all by many people. For most people with large gardens, for example,
croquet is just an agreeable social pastime for a sunny afternoon. But to a
few, it is a deadly serious competition. The same is true of the game such as
indoor bowling, darts or snooker. Even board games, the kind you buy in a shop,
have their national championships. Think of any pastime, however trivial, which
involves some element of competition and, somewhere in Britain, there is probably a ‘national association’ for it which organized contents.

The British
are so fond of competition that they even introduced it into gardening. Many
people indulge in an informal rivalry with their neighbors as to who can grow
the better flowers or vegetables. But the rivalry is sometimes formalized.
Though the country, there are competitions in which gardeners enter their
cabbage, leeks, onions, carrots or whatever in the hope that they will be
judged ‘the best’. There is a similar situation with animal. There hundreds of
dog and cat shows throughout the country at which owners hope that their pet
will win a prize. There are a lot of such specific kinds of sport in the United Kingdom but I want to stop my thought on consideration of more widespread.

THE
MAIN PART

The

British
are great lovers of competitive sports; and when they are neither
playing nor watching games they like to talk about them, or when they
cannot do that, to think about them. Modern sport in Britain is very different.
'Winning isn't every­thing' and 'it's only a game' are still
well-known sayings which reflect the amateur approach of the past. But
to modern professionals, sport is clearly not just a game. These days, top
players in any sport talk about having a 'professional attitude'
and doing their 'job' well, even if, officially, their sport is
still an amateur one. The middle-class origins of much British
sport means that it began as an amateur pastime - a leisure-time activity
which nobody was paid for taking part in. Even in football, which
has been played on a profes­sional basis since 1885, one of the first
teams to win the FA (Football Association) Cup was a team of amateur
players (the Corinthians). In many other sports there has been resistance
to professionalism. People thought it would spoil the sporting
spirit. May be they are right.

The
social importance of sport

The importance of participation in sport has
legal recognition in Britain. Every local authority has
a duty to provide and maintain playing fields and other facilities, which are
usually very cheap to use and sometimes even free. Spectator sport is also a
matter of official public concern. For example, there is a law which prevents
the televi­sion rights to the most famous annual sporting occasions,
such as the Cup Final and the Derby, being sold exclusively to
satellite channels, which most people cannot receive. In these cases it seems
to be the event, rather than the sport itself, which is important.
Every year the Boat Race and the Grand National are watched
on television by millions of people who have no great inter­est in rowing or
horse-racing. Over time, some events have developed a mystique which gives them
a higher status than the standard at which they are played deserves. In modern
times, for example, the standard of rugby at the annual Varsity
Match has been rather low - and yet it is always shown live
on television.

Sometimes
the traditions which accompany an event can seem as important
as the actual sporting contest. Wimbledon, for instance, is
not just a tennis tournament. It means summer fashions, strawber­ries
and cream, garden parties and long, warm English summer evenings.
This reputation created a problem for the event's organizers in 1993, when it was felt that security for players had to be tightened. Because Wimbledon is essentially a middle-class event, British tennis fans would never allow themselves to be treated like football fans. Wimbledon with security fences, policemen on
horses and other measures to keep
fans off the court? It just wouldn't be Wimbledon!

The
long history of such events has meant that many of them, and their
venues, have become world-famous. Therefore, it is not only the
British who tune in to watch. The Grand National, for example, attracts a
television audience of 300 million. This worldwide enthu­siasm has little to do
with the standard of British sport. The cup finals of
other countries often have better quality and more entertaining football
on view - but more Europeans watch the English Cup Final than any other. The
standard of British tennis is poor, and Wimbledon is only one of the world's major tournaments. But
if you ask any top tennis player, you find that Wimbledon is the one
they really want to win. Every footballer in the world dreams of playing at Wembley,
every cricketer in the world of playing at Lord's. Wimble­don,
Wembley and Lord's are the 'spiritual homes' of their
respective sports. Sport is a British export!

There are a lot of sports in Britain today and of course, there is no use in considering all of them. I try to make a
short review of the most famous in the world on the one hand and unusual sports
on the other hand. And the first one is the most popular game in the world:

Football

Football is the most popular team game in Britain. The British invented it and it has spread to every corner of the world. There is
no British team. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland compete
separately in European and World Cup matches. The English and Welsh clubs have
together formed a League with four divisions. The Scottish League has three
divisions. The champions of the English First Division, and the Scottish
Premier Division qualify to play in the European Cup competition.

British football
has traditionally drawn its main following from the working class. In general,
the intelligentsia ignored it. But in the last two decades of the twentieth
century, it has started to attract wider interest. The appearance of
fanzines is an indication of this. Fanzines are magazines written in an
informal but often highly intelli­gent and witty style, published by the
fans of some of the clubs. One or two books of literary merit have been written
which focus not only on players, teams and tactics but also on the wider
social aspects of the game. Light-hearted football programmes have
appeared on television which similarly give attention to 'off-the-field'
matters. There has also been much academic interest. At the 1990 World Cup there
was a joke among English fans that it was impossible to find a hotel room because
they had all been taken by sociologists!

Many team
sports in Britain, but especially football, tend to be men-only, 'tribal'
affairs. In the USA, the whole family goes to watch the baseball. Similarly,
the whole family goes along to cheer the Irish national football team. But in Britain, only a handful of children or women go to football matches. Perhaps this is why
active support for local teams has had a tendency to become violent. During the
1970s and 1980s football hooliganism was a major problem in England. In the
1990s, however, it seemed to be on the decline. English fans visiting Europe are now no worse in their behavior than the fans of many other countries.

For the great mass of the British public the
eight months of the football season are more important than the four
months of cricket. There are plenty of amateur association football
(or 'soccer') clubs, and professional football is big business.
The annual Cup Final match, between the two teams which have defeated
their opponents in each round of a knock-out contest, dominates
the scene; the regular 'league' games, organised in four divisions,
provide the main entertainment through the season and the basis for the vast
system of betting on the football pools. Many of the graffiti
on public walls are aggressive statements of support for football teams, and the
hooliganism of some British supporters has become notorious outside as well as inside Britain.

Football has been called the most popular game in
the world, and it certainly has a great many fans in Britain. And now I want to
mention the English terminology for
football.

Association football (or soccer) is the
game that is played in nearly all countries. A team is composed of a goalkeeper, two backs,
three half-backs and five forwards.

Association football remains one of the
most popular games played in the British Isles. Every Saturday from
late August un­til the beginning of May, large crowds of
people support their sides in football grounds up and down the country, while
an almost equally large number of people play the game in clubs
teams of every imagin­able variety and level of skill. Over the
last 20 years though, the attend­ance at football matches
has fallen away sharply. This is because of changing lifestyles and
football hooligans about I have already written but I want to add that violence
at and near the football grounds increased, there was an
ever-increasing tendency for people to stay away, leaving the
grounds to football fans.

After serious disturbances involving
English supporters at the Eu­ropean Cup Finals in Brussels in 1985
which led to the deaths of 38 spectators, English clubs were withdrawn
from European competitions for the 1985-1986 season by the Football
Association. The Cup Final at Wembley remains, though,
an event of national importance. Here is a drawing of a foot­ball
field, or "pitch", as it is usually called.

The football pitch should
be between 100 and 130 metres long and between 50 and 100 metres wide. It is divided into two halves by the halfway line. The sides of
the field are called the touch-lines and the ends are called the
goal-lines. In the middle of the field there is a centre circle
and there is a goal at each end. Each goal is 8 metres wide and be­tween 21/2 and 3 metres high. In front of each goal is the goal area and the penalty area. There is a
penalty spot inside the penalty area and a penalty arc outside it. A
game of football usually lasts for one and a half hours. At half-time,
the teams change ends. The referee controls the game.
The aim of each team is obviously to score as many goals as
possible. If both teams score the same number of goals, or
if neither team scores any goals at all, the result is a draw.

The final of the football
competition takes place every May at the famous Wembley stadium in London. Some of the best known clubs in England are Manchester
United, Liverpool and the Arsenal. In Scot­land either Rangers, Celtic or Aberdeen usually win the
cup or the championship.

Today,
many people
are only interested in football because of the pools and the chance of winning a lot of money.

Football pools

"Doing the pools" is a popular form of betting on football
results each week. It is possible to win more than half a million pounds for a
few pence.

The
English have never been against a gamble though most of them know where to draw the line and wisely refrain
from betting too often.
Since the war the most popular form of gambling is no doubt that of staking a small sum on the football
pools. (The word "pool" is connected
with the picture of streams of money pouring into a com­mon fund, or "pool" from which the
winners are paid after the firm has taken
its expenses and profit.) Those who do so receive every week from one of the pools firms a printed form; on
this are listed the week's matches.
Against each match, or against a number of them, the opti­mist puts down a I, a
2 or an x to show that he thinks the result of the match will be a home win (stake on fun’s team),
an away win (stake on a team of opponent) or a draw. The form is then posted
to the pools firm, with a postal order or cheque for the sum staked (or, as the firms say,
"invested"). At the end of the week the results of the matches are announced on television and
published in the news­papers and the "investor" can take out
his copy of his coupon and check his
forecast.

Rugby

There is another game called rugby football, so
called because it originated at Rugby, a well-known English public school. In
this game the players may carry the ball. Rugby football (or 'rugger') is played with an
egg-shaped ball, which may be carried
and thrown (but not forward). The ball is passed from hand to hand
rather than from foot to foot. If a player
is carrying the ball he may be
'tackled' and made to fall down. Each team has fifteen players, who spend a lot of time lying in the mud
or on top of each other and become
very dirty, but do not need to wear such heavily protective clothing as
players of American football.

There are two forms of
rugby - Rugby Union, which is strictly amateur, and Rugby League, played
largely in the north, which is a professional sport. Rugby Union has fifteen
players, while Rugby League has thirteen, but the two games are basically the
same. They are so similar that somebody who
is good at one of them can quickly learn to become good at the other. The real difference between them is a matter of
social history. Rugby union is the
older of the two. In the nineteenth century it was enthusi­astically taken up
by most of Britain's public schools. Rugby league split off from rugby union at the end of the
century. There are two versions of
this fast and aggressive ball game: rugby union and rugby league. Although it has now spread to many of the same
places in the world where rugby union
is played (rugby union is played at
top level in the British Isles,
France, Australia, South Africa and
New Zealand; also to a high level in
North America, Argentina, Romania and
some Pacific islands). Rugby can be
considered the 'national sport' of Wales, New Zealand, Fiji, Western Samoa and Tonga, and of South African whites. Its traditional home is among the working class of the north of England, where it was a way for miners
and factory workers to make a little bit of extra money from their sporting
talents. Unlike rugby union, it has always been a profes­sional sport.

Because
of these social origins, rugby league in Britain is seen as a working
class sport, while rugby union is mainly for the middle classes.
Except in south Wales. There, rugby union is a sport for all classes, and more
popular than football. In Wales, the phrase 'interna­tional
day' means only one thing — that the national rugby team are playing. Since
1970, some of the best Welsh players have been persuaded to 'change
codes'. They are 'bought' by one of the big rugby league clubs, where
they can make a lot of money. Whenever this happens it is seen as a national
disaster among the Welsh.

Rugby union has had some success
in recent years in selling itself to a wider audience. As a
result, just as football has become less exclusively working class in
character, rugby union has become less exclusively middle class.
In 1995- it finally abandoned amateurism. In fact, the amateur
status of top rugby union players had already become meaningless. They didn't
get paid a salary or fee for playing, but they received large
'expenses' as well as various publicity con­tracts and paid speaking
engagements.

Cricket

The game particularly associated with England is cricket. Judging by the numbers of people who play it and watch
it (ê look
at ‘Spectator attendance at major sports’),
cricket is definitely not the national sport of Britain.
In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, interest in it is largely
confined to the middle classes. Only in England and a small part of Wales is it played at top level. And even in England, where its enthusiasts
come from all classes, the majority of the population do not understand its
rules. Moreover, it is rare for the English national team
to be the best in the world.

Cricket is, therefore, the
national English game in a symbolic sense. However, to some people
cricket is more than just a symbol. The comparatively low attendance
at top class matches does not give a true picture of the level of
interest in the country. One game of cricket takes a terribly
long time, which a lot of people simply don't have to spare. Eleven
players in each team. Test matches between national teams can last
up to five days of six hours each. Top club teams play matches lasting
between two and four days. There are also one-day matches lasting about seven
hours. In fact there are millions of people in
the country who don't just enjoy cricket but are passionate about it! These
people spend up to thirty days each summer tuned to the live
radio commentary of ‘Test’ (= international) Matches. When they
get the chance, they watch a bit of the live television coverage. Some
people even do both at the same time (they turn the sound down on the
television and listen to the radio). To these people, the commentators become
well-loved figures. When, in 1994, one famous commentator died, the Prime
Minister lamented that 'summers will never: be the same again'. And
if cricket fans are too busy to listen to the radio commentary, they can always
phone a special number to be given the latest score!

Many other games
which are English in origin have been adopted with enthusiasm all over
the world, but cricket has been seriously and extensively adopted only
in the former British empire, particularly in Australia, New Zealand, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the West Indies and South Africa. Do you know how to play
cricket? If you don't live in these countries you won't learn
it at school. English people love cricket. Summer isn't summer without it. Even
if you do not understand the rules, it is attractive to watch
the players, dressed in white playing on the beautiful green crick­et
fields. Every Sunday morning from May to the end of September many
Englishmen get up very early, and take a lot of sandwiches with them.
It is necessary because the games are very long. Games between two village
teams last for only one afternoon. Games between counties last for three days,
with 6 hours play on each day. When England plays with one or other cricketing
countries such as Australia and New Zea­land it is called a test match and
lasts for five days. Cricket is played in schools, colleges and
universities and in most towns and villages by teams which play weekly games.
Test matches with other cricketing countries are held
annually.

Cricket is also played by
women and girls. The governing body is Women's Cricket
Association, founded in 1926. Women's cricket clubs have regular weekend
games. Test matches and other international matches
take place. The women's World Cup is held every four years. But There is The
Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and Lord's cricket ground in the United Kingdom. The MCC was founded in 1787, and is still the most important authority on
cricket in the world. As a club it is exclusively male. No woman is allowed to
enter the club buildings. There are special stands for members and their wives
and quests.

Organised amateur cricket is
played between club teams, mainly on Saturday afternoons. Nearly
every village, except in the far north, has its cricket club, and
there must be few places in which the popular image of England, as
sentimentalists like to think of it, is so clearly seen as on a village
cricket field. A first-class match between English counties lasts for up
to three days, with six hours play on each day. The game is slow, and a spectator,
sitting in the afternoon sun after a lunch of sandwiches and beer,
may be excused for having a little sleep for half an hour.

When people refer to cricket as the English
national game, they are not thinking so much of its level of
popularity or of the standard of English players but more of
the very English associations that it carries with it. Cricket is
much more than just a sport; it symbolizes a way of life - a slow and peaceful
rural way of life. Cricket is associated with long sunny summer
afternoons, the smell of new-mown grass and the sound of leather (the
ball) connecting with willow (the wood from which cricket bats are
made). Cricket is special because it com­bines competition with the
British dream of rural life. Cricket is what the village green is for! As if to
emphasize the rural connection, ‘first class’ cricket teams in England, unlike
teams in other sports, do not bear the names of towns but of counties (Essex
and Yorkshire, for example).

ANIMALS IN SPORT

Traditionally, the
favourite sports of the British upper class are hunting,
shooting and fishing. The most widespread form of hunting
is foxhunting — indeed, that is what the word ‘hunting’ usually
means in Britain. Foxhunting works like this. A group of
people on horses, dressed in eighteenth century riding clothes, ride
around with a pack of dogs. When the dogs pick up the scent of a
fox, somebody blows a horn and then dogs, horses and riders all chase the
fox. Often the fox gets away, but if not, the dogs get to it
before the hunters and tear it to pieces. As you might guess in a
country of animal-lovers, where most people have little experience of
the harsher realit­ies of nature, foxhunting is strongly
opposed by some people. The League Against Cruel Sports wants it made
illegal and the campaign has been steadily intensifying. There are sometimes
violent encounters between foxhunters and protestors (whom the hunters call
'saboteurs').Foxhunting is a popular pastime
among some members of the higher
social classes and a few people from lower social classes, who often see their
participation as a mark of newly won status. The hunting of foxes is sport associated through the centuries with
ownership of land. The hounds chase the fox, followed by people riding horses, wearing red or black coats
and conforming with various rules and
customs. In a few hill areas stags are hunted similarly. Both these types of hunting are enjoyed mainly by
people who can afford the cost of
keeping horses and carrying them to hunt meetings in 'horse boxes', or trailer vans. Both, particularly
stag-hunting, are opposed by people who condemn the cruelty involved in
chasing and killing frightened animals.
There have been attempts to persuade Parliament to pass laws to forbid hunting, but none has been
successful. There is no law about hunting foxes, but there is a fox-hunting
seasons – from November to March.

Killing birds with guns is
known as 'shooting' in Britain. It is a minority pastime
confined largely to the higher social classes; there are
more than three times as many licensed guns for this purpose in France as
there are in Britain. The birds which people try to shoot (such
as grouse) may only be shot during certain specified times of the year. The
upper classes often organize 'shooting parties' during the
'season'. The British do not shoot small animals or birds for
sport, though some farmers who shoot rabbits or pigeons may
enjoy doing so. But 'game birds', mainly pheasant, grouse and partridge, have
traditionally provided sport for the
landowning gentry. Until Labour's election
victory of 1964 many of the prime ministers of the past two hundred years, along with members of their cabinets, had gone to the grouse moors of Scotland or the Pennines for the opening of the shooting
season on 12 August. Since 1964 all that has changed. Now there are not
many leading British politicians carrying guns in the shooting parties, though there may be foreign millionaires, not all of
them from America. Some of the
beaters, whose job is to disturb the grouse so that they fly up to be shot, are students earning money to pay for trips
abroad. But there is still a race to send the first shot grouse to London restaurants, where there are people
happy to pay huge amounts of money for the privilege of eating them.

The only kind of hunting
which is associated with the working class is hare-coursing,
in which greyhound dogs chase hares. However, because the vast majority of
people in Britain are urban dwellers, this too is a minority activity.

The one kind of ‘hunting’ which is popular
among all social classes is fishing. In fact, this is the most
popular participatory sport of all in Britain. Between four and five million
people go fishing regularly. When fishing is done competitively, it
is called ‘angling’. The most popular of all outdoor sports is
fishing, from the banks of lakes or rivers or in the sea, from
jetties, rocks or beaches. Some British lakes and rivers are famous for their trout or
salmon, and attract enthusiasts from all
over the world.

Apart from being hunted,
another way in which animals are used in sport is when they race.
Horse-racing is a long-established and popular sport in Britain, both ‘flat racing’ and ‘national hunt’ racing (where there are jumps for
the horses), sometimes known as ‘steeple­chase’.
The former became known as 'the sport of
kings' in the seventeenth century,
and modern British royalty has close connec­tions with sport involving horses. Some members of the royal family own racehorses and attend certain annual race
meetings (Ascot, for example);
some are also active participants in the sports of polo and show-jumping (both of which involve riding a
horse). The steeplechase
(crosscountry running) is very popular
in most European countries. The
first known organized crosscountry race in 1837 was the Crick Run at Rugby School. Originally, crosscountry running took place over
open country where the hazards were the natural ones to be found in
the country. These included hedges,
ditches, streams and the like. Schools and some clubs still run over open
country. Sometimes, however, the competitors run off the course as, on one occasion, happened to all the runners in a race. Because of this, the organization of these
races has to be very strict.
Nowadays, crosscountry races (or steeplechases) are often run in an enclosed area where the hazards are artificial.
This makes organization easier.

The chief attraction of horse-racing
for most people is the oppor­tunity it provides for gambling (see
below). Greyhound racing, although declining, is still popular for the same
reason. In this sport, the dogs chase a mechanical hare round a
racetrack. It is easier to organize than horse-racing and ‘the
dogs’ has the reputation of being the ‘poor man's racing’.
Greyhound racing has had a remarkable revival in the 1980s, and by 1988
it accounted for about a quarter of all gambling. Its stadiums are near town
centres, small enough to be floodlit in the evenings. Until recently the
spectators were mostly male and poor, the surroundings shabby. The 1980s have
changed all this, with the growth of commercial sponsorship for
advertising. There are fewer stadiums and fewer spectators than in 1970,
but the old cloth cap image has become much less appropriate. But one
thing has not changed. The elite of Britain's dogs, and their trainers, mostly
come from Ireland.

INFORMATION:

Famous
(horse) race meetings

The Grand National: at Aintree, near Liverpool, in March or April It
is England's main steeplechase (race over fences). The course is over seven
kilometres and includes thirty jumps, of which fourteen are jumped twice. It is
a dangerous race Jockeys have been hurt and horses have been killed.

The Derby: at Epsom, south of London, in May or June. It is England's leading flat race (not over fences).

Ascot: near Windsor in June. Very fashionable. The Queen always
attends.

As I have mentioned horse-racing, I think it will
be good to draw attention to racing in hole.

RACING

There are all kinds of
racing in England — horse-racing, motor­car racing, boat-racing,
dog-racing, and even races for donkeys. On sports days at school boys
and girls run races, and even train for them. There is usually a
mile race for older boys, and the one who wins it is certainly
a good runner.

Usually those who run a race go as fast
as possible, but there are some races in which everybody has to go very carefully in
order to avoid falling.

There is the "three-legged" race, for example, in
which a pair of runners have the right leg
of one tied to the left leg of the other. If they try to go too fast
they are certain to fall. And there is the egg-and-spoon race, in which each
runner must carry an egg in a spoon without
letting it drop. If the egg does fall, it must be picked up with the spoon, not the fingers.

Naturally animals don't race unless they
are made to run in some way, though it often seems as if little lambs
are running races with each other in the fields in spring.

Horses are ridden, of course. Dogs won't race unless they
have something to chase, and so they are given a hare to go after, either a
real one or an imitation one.

The most famous boat-race in England is between Oxford and Cambridge. It is rowed over a course on the River Thames, and thou­sands of people go to watch it. The eight rowers
in each boat have great struggle,
and at the end there is usually only a short distance between the winners and
the losers.

The University boat-race started in 1820
and has been rowed on the Thames almost every spring
since 1836. At the Henly Regatta in Ox­fordshire, founded in 1839,
crews from all over the world compete each July in various kinds of
race over a straight course of 1 mile 550 yards (about
2.1 km).

Horse racing is big business, along with
the betting which sustains it. Every day of the year, except Sundays, there is
a race meeting at least one of Britain's several dozen racecourses.
Nine-tenths of the betting is done by people all over the country, by
post or at local betting shops, and it is estimated that a tenth of all British
men bet regularly on horse races, many of them never going to
a race course.

Horse racing accounts for about half of
all gambling, dog racing for a quarter (after increasing by 27 per cent in
1987-88). The total gambling expenditure is estimated at over three billion
pounds a year, or nearly 1 per cent of the gross domestic product - though those
who bet get about three-quarters of their stake back in winnings. There is no
national lottery, though premium bonds are a form of national savings, with
monthly prizes instead of interest. About half of all households bet regularly
on the football pools, although half of the money staked is divided between the state, through taxes, and the
operators. People are attracted by
the hope of winning huge prizes, but some winners become miserable with their sudden unaccustomed wealth.
Bingo sessions, often in old
cinemas, are attractive mainly to women, and have a good social element. More popular are the slot machines in
establishments described as
'amusement arcades'. There has been some worry about the addiction of young
people to this form of gambling, which can lead to theft.

Gambling

Even
if they are not taking part or watching, British people like to be involved in
sport. They can do this by placing bets on future results. Gambling
is widespread throughout all social classes. It is so basic to sport
that the word 'sportsman' used to be a synonym for 'gambler'.

When, in 1993, the starting procedure for the Grand National did not work properly, so that the race could not
take place, it was widely regarded as
a national disaster. The £70 million which had been gambled on the result (that's more than a pound
for each man, woman and child in the
country!) all had to be given back.

Every year, billions of pounds are bet
on horse races. So well-known is this activity that everybody in the
country, even those with no interest in horse-racing, would
understand the meaning of a ques­tion such as 'who won the
2.30 at Chester?' (Which horse won the race that was scheduled to
take place at half past two today at the Chester
racecourse? The questioner probably wants to know because he
or she has gambled some money on the result.) The central role of
horse-racing in gambling is also shown by one of the names used to
denote companies and individuals whose business it is to take bets. Although
these are generally known as 'bookmakers', they some­times call themselves
'turf accountants' ('turf is a word for ground where grass grows);

Apart from the horses and the dogs, the most
popular form of gambling connected with sports is the
football pools. Every week, more than ten million people stake a
small sum on the results of Saturday's professional matches.
Another popular type of gambling, stereotypically for
middle-aged working class women, is bingo.

Nonconformist religious
groups traditionally frown upon gambling and their disapproval has
had some influence. Perhaps this is why Britain did not have a national lottery until 1994. But if people want to gamble, then they
will. For instance, before the national lottery started, the British
gambled £250,000 on which company would be given the
licence to run it! The country's big bookmakers are willing to
offer odds on almost anything at all if asked. Who will be the next Labour
party leader? Will it rain during the Wimbledon tennis tournament? Will it snow
on Christmas Day? All of these offer opportunities for 'a
flutter'.

Apropos of the Wimbledon
tennis tournament: Wimbledon is a place to which every tennis-player aspire.
And I want to write some words about it.

WIMBLEDON

People all over the world know Wimbledonas
the centre of lawn tennis. But most people do not know that it was famous for another game before tennis was invented. Wimbledon is now a part of Greater London. In
1874 it was a country village, but it had a railway station and it was
the home of the All-England Croquet Club. The Club
had been there since 1864. A lot of people played croquet in Eng­land at
that time and enjoyed it, but the national championships did not attract many spectators. So the Club had very
little money, and the members were
looking for ways of getting some. "This new game of lawn tennis seems to have plenty of action, and
people like watching it," they thought. "Shall we allow people to
play lawn tennis on some of our
beautiful croquet lawns?"

In 1875 they changed the name of the Club to the
"All-England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club", and that is the name that
you will still find in the telephone book.
Two years later, in 1877, Wimbledon held
the first world lawn tennis championship (men's singles).3 The winner was S. W. Gore, a Londoner. There were 22
players, and 200 spectators, each
paid one shilling. Those who watched were dressed in the very latest fashion — the men in hard top hats
and long coats, and the ladies in
dresses that reached to the ground! The Club gained £ 10. It was saved. Wimbledon grew. There was
some surprise and doubt, of course, when the Club allowed women to play
in the first women's singles championship
in 1884. But the ladies played well—even in long skirts that hid their
legs and feet.

The Wimbledon championships
begin on the Monday nearest to June 22, at a time when England often has its finest weather. It is not only because of the tennis that people like to go
there. When the weather is good, it is a
very pleasant place to spend an afternoon. The grass is fresh and green, the players wear beautiful white clothes, the
spectators are dressed in the latest
fashion, there may be members of the
Royal Family among them, and there are cool drinks in the open-air cafes
next to the tennis courts. Millions of
people watch the championships on television.

OTHER SPORTS

Almost every sport which exists is played in Britain. As well as the sports already mentioned, hockey (mostly on a field but
also on ice) is quite popular, and both basketball (for men) and
netball (for women) are growing in popularity. So too is the ancient game of rounders.

Rounders

This sport is rather similar to Amer­ican
baseball and ancient Russian lapta, but it certainly does not have the same
image. It has a long history in England as some­thing
that people (young and old, male and female) can play together at
village fetes. It is often seen as not being a proper ‘sport’.

However, despite this image, it has
recently become the second most popular sport for state schools in Britain. More traditional sports such as cricket and rugby are being abandoned
in favour of rounders, which is much easier to organize. Rounders
requires less special equipment, less money and boys and
girls can play it together. It also takes up less time. It is
especially attractive for state schools with little money
and time to spare. More than a quarter of all state-school sports fields
are now used for rounders. Only football, which is played on nearly
half of all state-school fields, is more popular.

The British have a
preference for team games. Individual sports such as athletics, cycling,
gymnastics and swimming have comparat­ively small followings.
Large numbers of people become interested in them only when British
competitors do well in international events. The more popular
individual sports are those in which social­izing is an important
aspect (such as tennis, golf, sailing and snooker). It is notable in
this context that, apart from international competitions, the only
athletics event which generates a lot of enthu­siasm is the annual London
Marathon. Most of the tens of thousands of participants in this race
are 'fun runners' who are merely trying to complete it, sometimes in outrageous
costumes, and so collect money for charity.
The biggest new development in sport has been with long-distance running. 'Jogging',
for healthy outdoor exercise, needing no skill or equipment, became popular in the 1970s, and soon more and more people took it seriously. Now the annual London Marathon
is like a carnival, with a million
people watching as the world's star runners are followed by 25,000
ordinary people trying to complete the course. Most of them succeed and then collect money from supporters for
charitable causes. Many thousands of
people take part in local marathons all over Britain.

The Highland Games

Scottish Highland Games,at
which sports (including tossing the caber, putting the weight
and throwing the hammer), dancing and piping competitions take
place, attract large numbers of spectators from all over the world.

These meetings are held
every year in different places in the Scottish Highlands. They
include the clans led by their pipers, dressed in their kilts,
tartan plaids, and plumed bonnets, who march round the arena.

The features common to
Highland Games are bagpipe and High­land dancing competitions and the performance of
heavy athletic events — some of which, such
as tossing the caber, are Highland in ori­gin. All competitors wear Highland dress, as do most of the judges. The
games take place in a large roped-off arena. Several events take place at the same time: pipers and dancers perform on a
platform; athletes toss the caber,
put the weight, throw the hammer, and wrestle. There is also a competition for the best-dressed Highlander.

Highland dancing is performed to bagpipe music, by men
and women, such as the Sword Dance and the Reel.

No one knows exactly when the men of
the Highlands first gathered to wrestle, toss cabers, throw hammers,
put weights, dance and play music. The Games reflected the tough
life of the early Scots. Muscle-power was their means of
livelihood — handling timber, lifting rocks to build houses,
hunting. From such activities have developed the contests of tossing the caber,
putting the weight and throwing the hammer. Tossing the caber originated among
woodmen who wanted to cast their logs into the deepest part of a river. Tossing the caber is not a question of who can
throw it farthest. For a perfect throw the caber must land in the 12-o'clock
position after be­ing thrown in a
vertical semicircle. The caber is a very heavy and long log..

Conker Contest and British Marbles
Championship

Every year, usually on the
Wednesday nearest to 20th October, about a hundred competitors
gather to take part in the annual conker competition in a chosen place. The
conkers are collected by children from an avenue of chestnut
trees. The conkers are carefully examined and numbered on their flat
sides, then bored and threaded on nylon cord. Each competitor is
allowed an agreed number of "strikes", and a
referee is present to see fair play. There are prizes for winners and
runners-up. The contest usually starts at about 7 p. m.

It is said that in Elizabethan times two
suitors for a village beauty settled the matter by means of a marbles
contest. What is now the Marble Championship is believed to be a
survival of that contest. The game of marbles dates back to Roman
times. Teams of six compete on a circular, sanded rink. Forty-nine
marbles are placed in the centre of the rink, and the players
try to knock out4 as many as possible with their
marble. The marble is rested on the index finger and flicked5 with the
thumb. The two highest individual scores battle for the champion­ship
with only thirteen marbles on the rink. Similar contests are now held
in some other English-speaking countries.

INFORMATION

The well-known sporting
events

The Boat Race: (between Oxford and Cambridge universities), on
the River Thames

in
London at Easter. The course is over seven kilometres. Oxford have won 64

times,
Cambridge 69 times.

The
Wimbledon Tennis Tournament: in July, at Wimbledon, south London, regarded

by many tennis players as the most important championship to win.
There is great

public
interest in the tournament. Many tennis fans queue all night outside the

grounds
in order to get tickets for the finals.

The
Open Golf Championship: golf was invented by the Scots, and its headquarters

is at the Royal and Ancient Golf Club, St. Andrews, Scotland.

Henley
(Rowing) Regatta: at Henley on the Thames (between London and Oxford).

An
international summer event. It is a fashionable occasion.

Cowes Week: a yachting
regatta. Cowes is a small town on the Isle of Wight,

opposite Southampton, and a world-famous yachting centre.

CONCLUSION

At the end of my work I want to make a short review of
what I have already written and write what I haven’t written.

Many kinds of sport originated from England. The English have a proverb, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull
boy." They do not think that play is more important than work;
they think that Jack will do his work better if he plays as well, so he is
encouraged to do both. Association football, or socceris
one of the most popular games in the British Isles played
from late August until the beginning of May. In summer the English
national sport is cricket. When the English say: 'that's not cricket' it means 'that's not
fair', 'to play the game' means 'to be fair'.

Golf is Scotland's chief contribution to British sport. It is
worth noting here an interesting feature of
sporting life in Britain, namely, its frequently
close connection with social class of the players or specta­tors except where a game may be said to be a
"national" sport. This is the
case with cricket in England which is played and watched by all classes. This
is true of golf, which is everywhere in the British Isles a middle-class activity. Rugby Union, the amateur
variety of Rugby football, is the
Welsh national sport played by all sections of society whereas, elsewhere, it too is a game for the
middle classes. Association football
is a working-class sport as are boxing, wrestling, snooker, darts and dog-racing. As far as fishing is
concerned it is, apart from being the most popular British sport from the angle
of the number of active
participants, a sport where what is caught determines the class of a fisherman. If it is a salmon or trout it is
upper-class, but if it is the sort offish
found in canals, ponds or the sea, then the angler is almost sure to be working-class.

Walking and swimming are the two most
popular sporting activi­ties, being almost equally undertaken by men and women. Snooker
(billiards), pool and darts are the next most popular sports among men. Aerobics (keep-fit exercises) and yoga,
squash and cycling are among the sports where participation has been
increasing in recent years.

There are several places in
Britain associated with a particular kind of sport. One of them is Wimbledon — a suburb to
the south of Lon­don where the All-England Lawn Tennis Championships are held
in July (since 1877). The finals of the
tournament are played on the Cen­tre Court. The other one is Wembley — a stadium in north London where international football matches, the Cup Finals and other events have taken place since 1923. It can hold
over 100,000 spectators. The third
one is Derby, the most famous flat race in the English racing calendar,
it is run at Epsom near London since 1780.

Having written my work I think that I have proved sport’s
deserving attention. Especially sport is a very interesting theme concerning
the United Kingdom. Of course, I couldn’t illustrate all Britain sports, but which I still do reflect Britain’s life with all contradictory combinations.
Both life is calm and exciting, and sport is calm with golf’s followers and
exciting with football’s fans.